Utilizing the Cypress USB interface chip, and the High Performance RISC based Atmel Micro Controller, the Servo Controller SC-8000 is a series of controller boards that allow the PC to control industry standard hobby servos. From simple to complex motion, the SC-8000 will move the servos in precise coordinated programmed motion, or simply user real-time input motion (via joystick, keyboard, or other input devices). Besides direct control of servo motors, also available is the PPM (pulse-position-modulation) output, which allows controlling the servo motors via standard RC transmitter channels! yes, wireless! Below are some key features that separate the SC-8000 from other servo controllers.
 

USB Interface

The USB - Universal Serial Bus is the new standard for connecting devices to the PC, replacing the old workhorses: RS-232 Serial port and Parallel port. Many new PCs are not even equipped with serial or parallel ports. However, the RS-232 Serial port communication standard is still prevalent and easy to use. The SC-8000 comes with a built-in USB to Serial translator and will install as a COM device for Windows. This allow writing custom software to control the SC-8000 a snap since writing to COM ports is simple and can be done with just a few lines of code.

The USB interface will also let multiple SC-8000 to be connected as each board will be assigned a COM port number by the system (COM3, COM4, etc...) all the way to COM256! Theoretically you could have more than two hundreds SC-8000 connected; realistically about 8 or less are needed for most applications.

8 Servo Axis

The decision for 8 axis per control board is to follow similar RC receiver limits (more on this below) for controlling 8 servo motors per receiver.

0.1 u-sec Pulse Resolution

This unprecedented resolution is well below the noise-floor of any servo motors, analog or digital. For the RC world, a typical high end PCM system will have 1024 step resolution for the 1.0ms to 2.0 ms pulse width range, about 1 u-sec. The resolution of the SC-8000 is 10 times higher to ensure the best possible positioning accuracy: more than 10000 steps!. Any limitation will be be from the servo motor, not the the controller. The accuracy is controlled by a 10MHz crystal, delivering performance beyond "rock solid".

4 Digital IO

Very handy when you don't need full proportional control, where a simple on-off will do. You can use this TTL level signal to turn on-off relays or trigger other hardware.

PPM Output

This is where the SC-8000 truly separates itself from other servo controllers. The ability to output PPM, in either negative-shift or positive-shift, allows controlling the servos wirelessly via your RC transmitter (via trainer port), or a RF deck. It is not possible before if you want to control a craft (via RF) that requires more than a dozen proportional channels from one controller. You can connect each SC-8000 to a separate transmitter (RF channel) and have as many as you like. Well, there's a limit. In North America, there are 50 RF channels for aircraft (72 MHz band) and 30 RF channels for surface craft (75 MHz band). Of course you can also hook up your own RF deck if it can handle PPM.

This is where the PC becomes the "computer" in the computer radio. Just imagine the possibility of performing your custom motion mixes, where a slave axis motion depends on a master axis motion; and the slave axis can be on another RF channel!

The SC-8000 8 proportional axis lends well with industry standard 8 servo channel receivers. Moving from "wired" control to "wireless" can be done a in few minutes. Since you're not using any features of the radio other than the RF transmitting section, you can just use any low cost 4 channel FM radio.

Note: the PPM output does not contain info for the 4 Digital IO signals, thus the Digital IO cannot be used wirelessly.